It has been previously proposed to house electrical wires within a conduit in the form of a plastic tube or piping for running the wires between locations. For example, electrical wires conducting mains electricity may be run along the outside wall of a building between power points and/or fixed electrical fittings in this way. The wires are commonly sheathed within PVC piping or some other form of conduit to protect and insulate the wires. The conduit is commonly mounted to a substrate by mounting brackets fastened to the substrate at spaced intervals. Mounting brackets used for this purpose typically have a holding portion and a mounting portion integrally attached to the holding portion. The holding portion is shaped such that, in use, the holding portion extends around the conduit so as to hold the conduit in place between the mounting bracket and the substrate. The mounting portion is provided with an aperture through which a fastener can be inserted so as to fasten the mounting bracket to the substrate. The fastener may be in the form of, for example, a nail, bolt or screw. When the fastener is in the form of a screw, an anchor (for example a plastic anchor) may be used to assist in retaining the screw within the wall, particularly in the case where the wall is of a material (Such as brick, concrete or plaster) susceptible to failure when an axial load is applied to the screw.
Typically, mounting brackets of the above type are installed by manually supporting the mounting bracket over the conduit with the holding portion of the mounting bracket extending around an outside surface of the conduit so as to locate the conduit and mounting bracket in position ready for fastening. The fastener is then inserted through the aperture of the mounting bracket and into the substrate behind the mounting bracket, thus fastening the mounting bracket to the substrate. It is dangerous to use a powered fastening tool, such as a gas-actuated or powder-actuated fastening tool, to fasten mounting brackets in this way as, with the mounting bracket being supported manually in position during driving of the fastener through the mounting bracket, there exists a risk of accidentally driving a fastener through the hand used to support the mounting bracket in place. It is safer to manually insert a fastener through the aperture in the mounting bracket such as by manually driving a screw through the aperture and into the substrate of the wall using a screwdriver, however such manual insertion of fasteners is slow. Moreover, the fastening of mounting brackets in this way commonly requires two people, a first person to hold the mounting bracket and conduit in place and a second person to insert the fastener, making the process time-consuming and labour-intensive.
Examples of the present invention seek to overcome or at least alleviate one or more disadvantages of conventional methods of fastening wires housed in a conduit to a substrate.